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Hemming is a technology used in the automotive industry to join inner and outer closure panels together (hoods, doors, tailgates, etc.). It is the process of bending/folding the flange of the outer panel over the inner one. The accuracy of the operation significantly affects the appearance of the car’s outer surfaces and is therefore a critical factor in the final quality of a finished vehicle.
Hemming presses are widely used in automotive manufacturing for hemming of sheet-metal body components. The process uses traditional hydraulically operated ‘stamping presses’ to hem closure parts, and, being the last forming process in stamping, it largely determines the external quality of such automotive parts as doors, hood and trunk lid.
Tabletop hemming machines are utilised for the manufacture of medium to high production volumes, with the ability to achieve cycle times as low as 15 seconds.
Robot hemming is utilized for the manufacture of Low to medium production volumes. It uses a standard industrial robot integrated with a roller hemming head to provide a flexible method for forming closures. The flange of the outer panel is bent over the inner panel in progressive steps, by means of a roller-hemming head.
One advantage of this process is that it can use the robot-controlled hemming head to hem several different components within a single cell. Another is that minor changes or fluctuations in panel-hemming conditions can be quickly and cost-effectively accommodated. If equipped with a tool-changing system, the robot could serve a variety of additional functions within the same assembly cell, such as operating dispensing equipment for adhesives and sealants, or carrying out panel manipulations, using a gripper unit.
Polyurethane refers to a class of polymers composed of organic units joined by carbamate (urethane) links. In contrast to other common polymers such as polyethylene and polystyrene, polyurethane is produced from a wide range of starting materials. This chemical variety produces polyurethanes with different chemical structures leading to many different applications. These include rigid and flexible foams, and coatings, adhesives, electrical potting compounds, and fibers such as spandex and polyurethane laminate (PUL). Foams are the largest application accounting for 67% of all polyurethane produced in 2016.
Forging is a manufacturing process involving the shaping of metal using localized compressive forces. The blows are delivered with a hammer or a die. Forging is often classified according to the temperature at which it is performed: cold forging, warm forging, or hot forging. For the latter two, the metal is heated, usually in a forge. Forged parts can range in weight from less than a kilogram to hundreds of metric tons. Forging has been done by smiths for millennia; the traditional products were kitchenware, hardware, hand tools, edged weapons, cymbals, and jewellery.
A gasket is a mechanical seal which fills the space between two or more mating surfaces, generally to prevent leakage from or into the joined objects while under compression. It is a deformable material that is used to create a static seal and maintain that seal under various operating conditions in a mechanical assembly.
Roller chain or bush roller chain is the type of chain drive most commonly used for transmission of mechanical power on many kinds of domestic, industrial and agricultural machinery, including conveyors, wire- and tube-drawing machines, printing presses, cars, motorcycles, and bicycles. It consists of a series of short cylindrical rollers held together by side links. It is driven by a toothed wheel called a sprocket. It is a simple, reliable, and efficient means of power transmission.
Sheet metal is metal formed into thin, flat pieces, usually by an industrial process.
Hydroforming is a cost-effective way of shaping ductile metals such as aluminium, brass, low alloy steel, and stainless steel into lightweight, structurally stiff and strong pieces. One of the largest applications of hydroforming is the automotive industry, which makes use of the complex shapes made possible by hydroforming to produce stronger, lighter, and more rigid unibody structures for vehicles. This technique is particularly popular with the high-end sports car industry and is also frequently employed in the shaping of aluminium tubes for bicycle frames.
KUKA is a German manufacturer of industrial robots and factory automation systems owned by Chinese appliance manufacturer Midea Group.
The English wheel, in Britain also known as a wheeling machine, is a metalworking tool that enables a craftsperson to form compound curves from flat sheets of metal such as aluminium or steel.
Pneumatic tires are manufactured according to relatively standardized processes and machinery, in around 455 tire factories in the world. With over 1 billion tires manufactured worldwide annually, the tire industry is a major consumer of natural rubber. Tire factories start with bulk raw materials such as synthetic rubber, carbon black, and chemicals and produce numerous specialized components that are assembled and cured.
A linear-motion bearing or linear slide is a bearing designed to provide free motion in one direction. There are many different types of linear motion bearings.
Stamping is the process of placing flat sheet metal in either blank or coil form into a stamping press where a tool and die surface forms the metal into a net shape. Stamping includes a variety of sheet-metal forming manufacturing processes, such as punching using a machine press or stamping press, blanking, embossing, bending, flanging, and coining. This could be a single stage operation where every stroke of the press produces the desired form on the sheet metal part, or could occur through a series of stages. The process is usually carried out on sheet metal, but can also be used on other materials, such as polystyrene. Progressive dies are commonly fed from a coil of steel, coil reel for unwinding of coil to a straightener to level the coil and then into a feeder which advances the material into the press and die at a predetermined feed length. Depending on part complexity, the number of stations in the die can be determined.
Honda Marysville Auto Plant (MAP) is a Honda manufacturing facility located approximately six miles northwest of Marysville, Ohio, and 42 miles northwest of Columbus, Ohio, near the intersection of US 33 and State Route 739. It is one of the most integrated and flexible auto plants in North America. Operations include stamping, plastics injection molding, welding, painting, sub-assembly and assembly. The assembly plant opened in 1982.
Bending is a manufacturing process that produces a V-shape, U-shape, or channel shape along a straight axis in ductile materials, most commonly sheet metal. Commonly used equipment include box and pan brakes, brake presses, and other specialized machine presses. Typical products that are made like this are boxes such as electrical enclosures and rectangular ductwork.
Deep drawing is a sheet metal forming process in which a sheet metal blank is radially drawn into a forming die by the mechanical action of a punch. It is thus a shape transformation process with material retention. The process is considered "deep" drawing when the depth of the drawn part exceeds its diameter. This is achieved by redrawing the part through a series of dies.
A press brake is a machine used for bending sheet metal and metal plate, most commonly sheet metal. It forms predetermined bends by clamping the workpiece between a matching top tool and bottom die.
Manufacturing engineering or production engineering is a branch of professional engineering that shares many common concepts and ideas with other fields of engineering such as mechanical, chemical, electrical, and industrial engineering. Manufacturing engineering requires the ability to plan the practices of manufacturing; to research and to develop tools, processes, machines and equipment; and to integrate the facilities and systems for producing quality products with the optimum expenditure of capital. Transitioning the product to manufacture it in volumes is considered part of product engineering.
Spray-Up also known as chop method of creating fiberglass objects by spraying short strands of glass out of a pneumatic gun. This method is used often when one side of the finished product is not seen, or when large quantities of a product must be made cheaply and quickly with moderate strength requirements. Corvette fenders and boat dinghies are commonly manufactured this way.
Tube bending is any metal forming processes used to permanently form pipes or tubing. Tube bending may be form-bound or use freeform-bending procedures, and it may use heat supported or cold forming procedures.
According to EN 13523-0, a prepainted metal is a ‘metal on which a coating material has been applied by coil coating’. When applied onto the metallic substrate, the coating material forms a film possessing protective, decorative and/or other specific properties.
Hot Form Quench (HFQ®) is an industrial forming process for the production of deep drawn, precise and complex geometry ultra-high strength aluminium sheet components. It is a hot stamping process for certain grades of aluminium and has similarities to the press hardening of ultra-high strength steels. HFQ exploits viscoplasticity of aluminium at high temperatures to facilitate the production of lightweight structures, often replacing steel, composites, castings, extrusions or multiple cold formed pressings.